Enrollment decline, special education challenge SSUSD

Tuesday

Dec 11, 2012 at 11:56 AMDec 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Declining enrollment and special-education mandates continue to plague the Sierra Sands Unified School District as district officials deal with the budget.Reporting to the Board of Education Tuesday, Budget and Finance Director Gavin MacGregor presented charts showing the decline of the district’s average daily attendance.

By John V. Cianijciani@ridgecrestca.com

Declining enrollment and special-education mandates continue to plague the Sierra Sands Unified School District as district officials deal with the budget.Reporting to the Board of Education Tuesday, Budget and Finance Director Gavin MacGregor presented charts showing the decline of the district’s average daily attendance.“It speaks to the effect that our enrollment has had on our ADA,” he said. “As you lose kids, you lose attendance points.”Sierra Sands ADA has declined from 5,453 in 2005-06 to 4,740 this year.“We’ve lost more than 650 ADA,” MacGregor said. “We know we’ve been in declining enrollment for a handful of years.”He said ADA is projected to be 4,740 in 2013-14.Another chart showed total revenue-limit funding declining from approximately $31 million in 2006-07 to approximately $27 million this fiscal year.“Our declining enrollment obviously affects that as well as the large cuts that you’ve received,” he said. “Those cuts, I believe, have been the largest piece of the decline. It is projected for this year and the next out year.”MacGregor said 2009-10 was the first year the district received very substantial cuts, but the increases in 2009-10 and 2010-11 were the result of federal one-time money.“We’ve been consistently very low in our dollars per ADA,” he said.He said special education continues to be grossly underfunded at the state and federal level.Mental health is a new funding source for us,” said MacGregor. “It’s now turned over to local control.”He said federally mandated special-education transportation is grossly underfunded.“We receive approximately $30,000 to operate a $600,000 program,” he said. “It makes it very difficult for us to manage that. We don’t receive any federal money.”MacGregor said state special-education funding is based on district enrollment.“As our district enrollment as a whole decreases, we lose special-education funding,” he said. We have seen increases over the past three years in special-ed students. As we increased there and those needs increased, our funding has decreased.”Superintendent Joanna Rummer said the broadened autism spectrum contributed greatly to the increase.“Years ago in special education, many of our students were physically challenged and mentally challenged,” she said. “We have a lot of students who have really serious emotional issues. We take more resources. There is a lot more identification — a lot earlier identification. It’s a combination of many things put together. We’re going to see more and more and more of this.”Boardmember Tom Pearl said he talked to colleagues in other districts, and said they are having the same kind of problems.“Ours is compounded by declining enrollment,” he said.Next: Unrestricted revenue vs. expenditures, total budget and ending fund balance